


As The Vessel Cracks

by BirdHeadedKitty



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Aftermath, Battle of Sodden Hill, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Sodden Hill, TV Witcher, Teleportation, Trissaia de Vries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:33:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22104130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BirdHeadedKitty/pseuds/BirdHeadedKitty
Summary: Chaos can only be conserved when the vessel is intact, and Yennefer has been papering up the cracks for a while.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 4
Kudos: 99





	As The Vessel Cracks

The first time she’d disappeared from one place only to reappear in another it had been an accident. She hadn’t even known she could do that.

Yet as she’d desperately wished herself anywhere but where she was (cowering under cruel hands and crueler taunts), something had happened. Reality had bent somehow and then she'd found herself in a place of skulls and bones, and eyes filled with kindness.

The smallest acts of kindness always stood out to her back then, they were as rare as dragon scales and she treasured them. Far more common were the beatings and words spiked with barbs that reminded her how worthless she was. Before her transformation, the scars from her father's belt buckle had littered her deformed body. Yet somehow, it was always the words that had cut the deepest. Wounds could heal, but words were like ghosts that could never be laid, returning years later to flay her heart anew. 

“Conserve your chaos”, Tissaia had told her early in the battle. The weight of boots marching shook the land, but she was to stand like a raven on the tower and play messenger to her fellow mages. At first she’d struggled to understand why, why she wasn’t among the others as Coral was mutilated and Triss burned. But then Fringilla had sacrificed yet another of her mages to bring them the worms and all hell had broken loose.

First came the agony of something cold and sharp ripping its way into her guts and turning her dress red with crimson blooms. Sabrina's eyes had been empty as she'd attacked her on the tower- unnatural and and more at home in a corpse than the sorceress she'd once known. But then came the explosions, indiscriminate heralds that left a charnel ground of broken bodies in their wake, and her attacker's eyes became those of a corpse.

_“Conserve your chaos.”_ She tells herself this as she staggers down from the tower holding her stomach with a hand already slick with blood. 

When she’d arrived at Aretuza, Tissaia’s words had joined the legion of ghosts that already followed her. She’d been cruel and unyielding - testing. And it had all seemed so pointless until the night when she’d pushed her former friend Anika into the waters beneath Aretuza. 

Sometimes the best thing a flower can do for us is die. And a mage who can’t control the chaos and produce magic becomes little more than a conduit to be pushed into shimmering waters. 

She’d understood then. Tissaia had been teaching her control, poking her incessantly with ‘piglet’ and words designed to twist and burn until they hardened. It was a lesson Yennefer had taken to heart, and in turn had eventually turned her own heart to stone. 

Or so she’d thought. But the cracks had started not long after she’d buried a young princess in cold, wet sand. 

“We’re just vessels,” she’d told those ears that would never hear. “Even when we’re told we’re special...we’re still just vessels, for them to take and take until we’re empty and alone.” 

Her dalliance with Geralt had papered the cracks somewhat. There had been moments when she’d almost felt happy with the amber-eyed Witcher. But like most other things in her life, that too had been taken away. In the end, it would be the final wish of a man who just wanted to sleep that broke her. This was something she knew to the core of her being, it was only a matter of time now. The paper had been ripped away and new cracks left in its wake. 

“Let your chaos explode!” Tissaia's hissed words set off a chain reaction and the vessel that was Yennefer broke, razing the forest before her with fire born of pain. 

She remembers too much and nothing at all of what came next. Only that when it was done, when the armies of Nilfgaard were burned to a crisp and the cries of dying men no more, she wanted to be anywhere but among the horrors of Sodden Hill and Tissaia’s all-too-knowing eyes. Reality cracks around her in a shimmering pool and darkness the darkness rushes up. Again it's Tissaia’s words from long ago that rise up to haunt her as she falls, “You’ve lost a lot of blood, piglet.” 

“Fuck,” she breathes, and then she's gone. 


End file.
